Inman

Realtor.com ads focus on source of listing data

Three new realtor.com videos continue the portal’s aggressive, new “Find It First” marketing campaign launched last month to highlight the accuracy and timeliness of the website’s listings.

The videos depict would-be buyers imagining themselves enjoying their dream home, only to have other homebuyers show up and disrupt the dream. The implication is that buyers who are armed with the most accurate, up-to-date information will beat out others relying on less reliable data not sourced directly from multiple listings services.

The ads will run online through June, on sites like Yahoo, Yelp and Curbed, and on a number of national newspaper websites.

One of three new realtor.com online video ads in the “Find It First” ad campaign.

“Buyers’ competitive edge lies in the accuracy, comprehensiveness and timeliness of listing data,” said Barbara O’Connor, executive vice president of marketing at Move in a statement.

Thanks to its ties to the National Association of Realtors, realtor.com gets listings from most of the nation’s MLS. Other “third-party” listing portal like Zillow and Trulia get many listings directly from MLSs and brokers, but in some markets depend more heavily on syndicators.

The new realtor.com campaign, which included a site and branding revamp, emphasizes the quality of its data, which realtor.com claims represents 98 percent of all MLS-listed properties in the U.S.

Other listing portals that rely on multiple sources can have timeliness, accuracy and comprehensivess shortcomings. In some markets, studies sponsored by brokerages that offer consumers listing data from MLSs have found that third-party websites have only about 80 percent of listings in some markets.

Zillow says it has many homes for sale that aren’t listed in an MLS, including for-sale-by-owner homes, newly-constructed builder-posted homes, and the site’s “Make Me Move” properties, which homeowners make available by quoting a price at which they’d consider selling their home for.

Trulia says its listing accuracy is much better than that reported in recent listing accuracy studies. Trulia says the studies focused on ZIP codes where the portal had the fewest MLS listings.